Free Dragonback 04 Dragon and Herdsman by Timothy Zahn Page B

though, the trail came to an
abrupt halt at the edge of a twenty-foot cliff. "Well, we needed to
head west sometime anyway," Alison said as she and Jack surveyed the
drop-off. "Let's go back to that last left-hand bunny trail and see how
far it'll take us."
    "Sounds good," Jack agreed. He hadn't had a chance yet to tell her
about the change in their travel plans, but there would be time for
that once they'd gotten past this cliff. "Go ahead and check it out.
I'll bring Greenie and follow—"
    "Jack?" Colonel Frost's voice came suddenly from his left
shoulder. "Can you hear me?"
    "Don't answer," Alison said sharply.
    "I know," Jack said, double-checking that the comm clip's
transmitter was still off.
    "I know you can hear me Jack," Frost went on. "I'm sorry about
your uncle—I really am. Please believe me when I say that we really did
want him alive. But he took one gamble too many. I'm afraid he and your
ship are both gone."
    Jack set his teeth firmly down on his tongue. Frost was trying to
goad him into talking, he knew, hoping for some anguished cry of anger
or denial or defiance that could be traced.
    But he wasn't going to fall for it. Draycos's trick had worked, he
told himself firmly, and the Essenay was safe. It had to be.
    "Just one of the many hazards of carrying missiles aboard a ship
that was never designed for them," Frost said. "Those were highly
illegal for you to have, by the way."
    Jack looked surreptitiously at Alison. She was gazing back at him,
a thoughtful look on her face that he didn't care for at all.
    "Sadly, there's nothing any of us can do about that now," Frost
said. "Except, of course, to make sure you and your K'da don't suffer
his same fate."
    "Better turn it off," Alison said. "Out here in the middle of
nowhere, even electronics as small as a comm clip can sometimes be
detected."
    "Yeah, that part of Sergeant Grisko's training I remember," Jack
said. He switched off the comm clip, cutting Frost off in midsentence.
"We'd better get out of here."
    "Right," Alison said. "You take Greenie and get everybody moving
down the path. I'll hang back a ways and play rear guard."
    Beneath Jack's shirt, K'da claws brushed lightly but urgency at
Jack's skin. "Better idea: you take them," he said, thinking fast. "Now
that we're out of the main Erassva stomping grounds, I can go ahead and
set that booby trap I was going to use earlier."
    A slight frown creased her forehead, but she nodded. "Okay, but
don't be too long," she said. Getting a grip on the green K'da's crest,
she turned him around and started maneuvering her way back though the
crowd of K'da and Erassvas that had gathered behind them.
    "Is something wrong?" Hren asked as Alison and Greenie reached the
side trail and started along it. He didn't seem particularly worried,
merely curious.
    "A small change in direction," Jack assured him as he passed the
other. "Stay with Alison and help her keep the Phookas together."
    "I will," Hren promised.
    Jack reached the back of the crowd and continued on. A wide
S-curve later he was out of their sight. "Okay, buddy, we're on," he
murmured.
    There was a surge of weight against his shoulders, and Draycos
leaped out of his shirt. "What is the plan?" the dragon asked, his gold
scales glistening in the sunlight filtering through the mass of
branches high above them.
    "The plan is to keep Frost and his band of pirates from catching
us," Jack told him grimly. "I just wish I really had something to use
as a booby trap, like Alison thinks I have."
    "You do," Draycos said. "You have me."
    "Yeah, I figured you'd say that," Jack said grimly. "Problem is,
they know about you now. That means no more sneak attacks."
    "Perhaps," Draycos said calmly. He rose partially up on his hind
legs, his neck stretching upward as he tried to look past the bushes
and branches. His tongue flicked in and out of his mouth a few times as
he smelled the air. "I may yet have a few surprises for them. What will
you do while I am gone?"
    Jack made a